


I'll Keep My Eyes Wide Open

by eat_sleep_larry_repeat



Series: Don't Let Me Go [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anal, Blow Jobs, Bottom!Harry, Children, Fingering, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Oral Sex, Self Harm, Smut, child walking in on sex, cute dates, cuteness, fake relationship turns real, glasses!louis, oh and getting each other off, out of school care, possibility of becoming foster child, top!Louis, trigger warning, very real
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-28 10:08:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/990778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eat_sleep_larry_repeat/pseuds/eat_sleep_larry_repeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry works at the local out of school centre and finds himself thrust into a relationship in order to help save one of the children who attends the centre. But he finds out that his original intentions may not be entirely for the child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Okay so this idea came to me while I was at work one day and, believe it or not, I happen to work in an out of school care centre. Basically, none of it's real, it's all a part of my imagination and I always think about this while at work.
> 
> The title is from that song Harry did with Sam McCarthy, Don't Let Me Go.
> 
> I don't own any of the boys, nor do I get any profits from my work, it is merely for fun!

Harry loves his job, he really, really, does. He just hates yelling, is the thing. And he hates having to yell at the kids, like he has to right now. “Jaymee, you need to hurry up, _now._ You’ve been here long enough to know that when we line up, we are quiet. You’re setting a bad example for Katelynn. Do you think Katelynn wants to hear me getting upset at you guys on her first day here?” Harry asks, raising his eyebrows to turn and look at all of the children.

At the soft chorus of ‘no’s from the children, he nods and says “that’s what I thought. Now, if we can walk back to the centre without a hitch, then I might be able to treat you guys to a reward – but!” raising his voice a little to cut the children off from their excited murmurs before they can get too loud “- you need to be good. I want a single line,” he says looking directly at Pip so she knows he’s talking to her “and I want you to be behaved. All clear?” The children nod and bounce up and down on the balls of their feet in anticipation.

With one last look at all of the children, Harry claps his hands together once and says "right, let's go kiddies!" and turns around and starts walking through the school yard, guiding them through the path that everyone knows so well, the path that they could probably go down in their sleep without a problem. 

As he's walking, Harry keeps an ear out for any signs of children yelling or getting upset at each other, turning around every so often to make sure that no one is straggling behind. Of course, it's not completely quiet, Harry doesn't think it's possible for children to be completely quiet. But he can tell that they're all keeping the chatter at a quieter level and he thinks that that's good enough to deserve a reward. Until he hears a yell, that is. 

He whips around and turns to look at who might be yelling, carefully walking backwards - he's glad that they're on the oval already because as well as he knows this route, there's lots of honkey nuts lying around on the floor in the school yard that he's always stumbling on, much to the children's delight- to look for who it might've been. He can't see who it was that yelled, but he thinks he has a pretty good idea because he knows that voice quite well. Giving the kids a once over again, he turns back around to continue walking across the oval when there's a shriek of _"JAXON STOP!!"_ And well, he was right.

"Jackson, come here now please" Harry calls over his shoulder, knowing that he'll come. "Which one?" he hears in reply, and really, he hates that kids can have the same name, even if they're not the same spelling. "Both" is all that's required and he can hear the sounds of other children trying to dob in what each boy was doing, but he needs to hear it from the two boys first.

"I don't want either of you two to say a word until we get back to the centre. Jaxon, you go on my right and Jackson, you go on my left. Not a peep from either of you or you have a consequence" he tells them both sternly, and when Jaxon opens his mouth to say something in protest, he shoots him a stern look and that has the boy scurrying to his side straight away.

When he reaches the gate, he stops in front of it and turns around and asks "Who wants to hold the gate open for everyone?" and well, he feels silly asking who wants to hold the gate open, because, who wants to hold the gate open? But he knows that if he doesn't appoint someone, there'll be arguments over who's holding it and he's already got one argument to sort out, he doesn't particularly fancy another one. So he's not the least bit surprised when all of the kids - including Jaxon and Jackson - put their hands up. Admittedly, there's not that many he had to collect today, just ten, but there's still going to be more kids from the pick up. Even still, it's going to be a quiet day today.

"Asha you can do it if you want!" he nods at a small girl with beautiful curly orange hair and her face lights up like she's just seen Santa. Really,  _it's just a gate_ he thinks. It really isn't that fun holding a gate open, he doesn't see the enjoyment of it at all.

As Asha bounds up to the fence, he can hear the other kids grumbling about not holding the gate and he quickly looks at one boy in particular, Byron, and raises one eyebrow at him because in his time working at this centre, Harry has learnt that Byron likes to complain about  _everything._ Byron simply pulls a face, then looks down to the floor.

Harry walks through the gate and goes over to the door, unlocks it, turns around and leans on it while he waits for the kids to come and line up in front of him. He listens out to whether or not anybody says a _'thank you'_  and he's fairly sure he only hears one person say it.

The two offending boys stand obediently on either side of him - a fact in which Harry is quite proud of, it means he can let them off a little bit easier - while everyone else stands in one line in front of him. Pushing himself off the door he stands up straight, claps his hands together once and says "okay kiddos, you know the drill. Hats off and in your bags straight away, then when you get inside, bags down  _neatly_ in the bag corner, wash your hands and then go sit down at the tables ready for afternoon tea! But before we do that, Asha, can you come up here please?" He asks and she walks up to him nervously, like she's done something wrong.

"How many people said thank you for holding the gate open?" And well, clearly that's not what she was expecting because she looks both surprised and relieved but then confused as she thinks back to how many people said thanks to her. "One I think?" And Harry nods and asks "who was it?" And she doesn't hesitate to say "Charis" and well of course it's Charis, she's so polite about  _everything_. And when Harry says everything, he means everything. That girl could get hit by a fucking freight train and she'd be apologizing to the driver.

All Harry has to do is look at her, flick his head back slightly in a beckoning motion and she knows to come up to him. Harry's not gonna lie, he kind of enjoys that power he has over the kids, it's the kind of power which means that he could tell them to fling themselves off a cliff and they would. Simply because _'_ _Harry said to'._ Not that he would of course. But, well, that's kind of awesome he thinks. _  
_

 _Once Charis reaches his side he says, loud enough for everyone to hear, "I'm impressed with you Charis, you remembered your manners and quite frankly, I'm quite disappointed in everyone else. Politeness will get you far in life, always remember that. And I think today, I'm going to give you a reward for it. Now bare in mind, this won't happen very often, but I'm real glad you have common courtesy that I think you deserve a little something for it. So once you drop your bag off inside, go straight into the store room, and grab a prize from the prize bin" he finishes, smiling at her while he hands her the keys._

Harry doesn't think he'll ever get over the way all of the other children start yelling out _"thank you_ _"_ s like their lives depend on it. He laughs and says "guys seriously? You think I'm going to give you a prize simply because you start saying 'thank you' when prompted? No. You guys are smart enough to know better than that. In you go" and he steps away from the door, opening it for the first child to rush inside and put their bag down with the promise of food.

Charis heads inside and goes straight for the store room, and when Jaxon and Jackson start to head inside, Harry simply makes a very short "ah" noise, in a tone that says  _'you boys are in trouble, don't go anywhere'_. They turn back around and look at him and Harry steels himself for the hard part.

"Guys, I don't know what was going on, and quite frankly, I don't care in the slightest. You guys are always fighting and I'm sick of it. I'm not having any of it today. So. Go inside, put your stuff down, wash your hands and sit down. On different tables, I don't want you anywhere near each other, otherwise I'll move you myself. If you behave well enough during afternoon tea, then maybe I won't have to appoint you to dishes and cleaning" and the boys can obviously see that Harry means business so they simply nod and say "sorry Harry" in unisen and well, that's good enough, so he nods and they go inside.

_That wasn't so bad_ Harry thinks as he sighs.

Walking in he can see that the bags are a mess, as per usual, and there's two kids sitting at the table already, waiting for their food. He walks through the hall, pats Tabitha on the head on the way past and laughs at the squawk she lets off and goes to stand in the hallway between the boys and girls bathrooms. Same as usual, he can hear ridiculous amounts of chatter and not many taps running. 

He goes to the boy's bathroom, counts down from five fairly loud, and when he gets to one, all of the boys are already out. Girls are never that easy though. So he walks over to the girl's bathroom, stands outside for about ten seconds to see who's talking to who and about what and really, it's all nonsense. These kids never make a lick of sense. So he takes a deep breath and walks in and the girls all squeak when they see that  _Harry is in the girl's toilet_ _!!!!_ He raises an eyebrow and the girls scuttle to wash their hands and slip past him to go back into the hallway.

Once all the girls are out, he walks out and goes back into the main hall and is pretty happy with what he sees. Children all sitting at the tables attentively, Jaxon and Jackson on seperate tables. Nodding he goes into the kitchen, grabs the fruit platter he made earlier out of the fridge and puts it on the counter that separates the kitchen from the main hall next to the door. He grabs the tongs and puts them on the tray then comes back into the hall and leans against the wall waiting for the children's attention that he gets pretty fast.  _Power_ he thinks.

"While we're waiting for the pick up kids, why don't you tell me about your day today?" he asks and when all of the kids put their hands up, only about two actually stay in their seats. So he chooses one of them. "Crystal, how was your day today?" he asks and everyone else sits back down and looks glum.

She thinks about it for a second, then simply states, "bad". So Harry over dramatises his gasp that he does, knits his eyebrows together and raises his hand to his mouth, so that he looks really upset that she had a bad day. Something he learned early on is that kids don't tell you their stories unless you look really interested. To the point where you feel like a dick head over dramatizing everything to ridiculous heights.  _"Why?!"_ he squeaks so dramatically and so realistically that Harry thinks that maybe he should take up acting. 

"I dunno... It was just boring I guess. Didn't really do much. Rose kept picking on me like normal" and Harry doesn't like to hate children, but this Rose kid has been picking on Crystal for years and he's really sick of it to be honest. So when he looks upset at that news, it's really not acting at all this time. "Well Crystal, you know what?" he asks with a cheerful lilt at the end and she shakes her head as a no. "I think that you're perfect! Ignore Rose, she shouldn't bring you down, because do you know whose opinion matters?" he asks her, attempting to cheer her up. Again, she shakes her head no. "Mine!" he yells and there we go, there's that smile again.

He smiles back at her and goes over to give her a hug which is relatively awkward, considering the fact that she's in a chair that's about the size of her, but it comforts her enough so that's all that matters. When he stands back up, he can see through the doors that pick up has arrived so he announces, "alright, one more person. Who else wants to tell me how their day went? And really guys, stay seated, I'm not going to choose you if you jump up at me."

Scanning the crowd he almost rolls his eyes at Byron because he's already standing up with his hand raised high and that's such a typical  _Byron_ thing to do. "I think Asha can tell us because she held the gate open for all of us. So tell me Asha, how was your day?" he asks, putting on his best interviewer face, pretending to hold a microphone and pulling a very stereotypical posh face, which gets a laugh from all of the other children just as the pick up kids start to walk through the doors. 

"Go wash your hands guys that just came in!" he yells to all the kids that just came through the glass doors then turns back to Asha who still looks thoughtful. She finally figures out what she wants to say and blurts out "it was awesome! We did colouring in class, and we got to play with play dough and make stuff and it was so cool!" And Harry laughs and tells her that's great and he's glad she had such a good day. It really doesn't take much to entertain children.

By this point all of the pick up kids have come and sat down, so he points to the table with the jellybean tablecloth and says "Alright everyone, three pieces of  _different_  fruit each, use the tongs and sit back down. Your scraps go in the chook bin. Jellybean table can go first, go get your fruit" and they all scramble up and out of their chairs at once and he sighs and has to move each child into two lines because there's only two pairs of tongs and when they crowd like that there's no way they'd all get fruit. But that doesn't ever seem to occur to children.

Once the first table has grabbed their fruit and is sitting back down, he points to the next table with balloons as the tablecloth and they all bustle up to get their food, this time waiting patiently. Except for Jack. Jack is sitting at the table still. Harry internally groans and he thought Jack was over this already, he'd been doing so well the last couple of weeks. But no. Of course he's back to being fussy and only eating sultanas. For fuck's sake. 

"Jack, come up here please" he calls out and Jack jumps out of his chair and stands next to Harry and honestly, Harry will never get over the height of Jack. Harry understands that he's fucking tall, but this kid, he's so small it's so cute. Granted he's only about five, but he's still shorter than most. He's going to be one of those cute guys that is the same height as their girlfriends, maybe a bit shorter. Or boyfriends. Whatever way he decides to swing (the other workers have bets on whether or not he'll be gay, he plays with all of the 'girls' toys and is really cuddly and affectionate, but Harry was never like that as a kid, yet he's as gay as they come, so, really, he tries to stay out of that conversation). But he literally comes up to below Harry's waist, and even when he squats down to talk to him, he's still miles taller than the kid.

So when he squats in front of Jack, and bends a little further to get on a better level with him, he asks him what's wrong and when Jack mumbles "I don't like fruit" Harry tries so hard not to sigh, because the boy is so sensitive that he would get offended by a sigh. Instead he says "alright, I've got an idea, hold on a sec," and calls out to one of the other play leaders, Alexia, while he stands up and asks her if she can please take over while he grabs Jack under his arms and hoists him up onto his hip. Jack squeals with both fear and delight and Harry runs into the kitchen and stops in front of the fridge.

"How about we make a deal Jack?" he asks the boy, turning his head to get a look at him and Jack instantly goes glum again because he knows it's going to involve fruit in some form. But that just makes Harry nod, open the fridge and show him the basket with the fruit in it. He grabs an apple out, goes to the cupboard, pulls out the box of sultanas, places them on the bench so he can rummage around and find the knife and chopping board.

Once they've been located, he rinses the apple and puts it on the chopping board, grabs a bowl and puts some sultanas in it and puts Jack back on the floor. Jack looks up at Harry and grabs onto the hem of his bright pink work shirt (the owner of the centre didn't think they'd be employing any males, but they'd loved how he responded to the kids so easily, plus, he loves pink, so he doesn't mind all that much) and asks "what're you doing Harry?" 

When Harry responds with "just hold on a sec Jack" and starts cutting up the apple, it's so obvious that he's scared of what's to come but Harry just has to laugh at that because he wouldn't do anything to hurt the poor boy. Once he's finished cutting the apple and putting the scraps in the bin - with Jack still attached to him by the shirt - he picks Jack back up, places him back on his hip and looks him in the eye and says "you have a piece of apple, then I'll have a piece. You have a piece, I'll have a piece, and we'll go back and forth until the apple's all eaten, and then you can have this bowl of sultanas. How does that sound?" and  _god_ Harry sounds so patronizing but he knows it'll get Jack to eat fruit that isn't just a sultana so he has to do it.

And well, Harry was expecting the response he got from Jack, which is a shake of the head saying no, so he holds up a piece of apple to Jack and says "Jack you need to it this please. It's just an apple, I know you like apple, I've seen you eat it before. What happened? We were going so good, you were eating so well. Come on please, just one piece to start with, you only need to eat half an apple and then you can have all of those sultanas that are just waiting for you!"

So Jack takes it with a very big sigh - this kid is so sassy, honestly. Just the _way_ that he sighs has more sass in it than Harry would be able to manage in an entire sentence - he glumly takes the apple and takes the smallest bite out of it that a human could possibly take and Harry wonders if that bite is smaller than what an ant would take out of a bite. Probably, he decides. "I'm happy to stand here all day Jack, if that's what it takes for you to eat this. The quicker you get it done, the quicker you can have your sultanas and then go back out to everybody else." 

Harry knows they'll be here for a while, so he leans back against the counter and gets comfortable and grabs his piece of apple and it's gone within seconds, so he looks at Jack expectantly who groans and takes a bigger bite out of his piece. It takes about five minutes to get through the first piece of apple and even then, he's still eaten around the skin entirely. But Harry will take that as an achievement, so now they're onto the next piece. Thankfully Jack eats it in a shorter amount of time, but not by much, and so Harry eats his piece and hands Jack the next one.

Jack takes it and he just looks so miserable eating it that Harry takes pity on him and eats his last two pieces, along with Jack's final piece without him even knowing and when he's done, Harry exclaims "look Jack!! You're done!! And guess what that means?!" and Jack drops his piece of apple skin on the floor and bounces up and down on Harry's hip in what really is an innocent gesture but Harry laughs because it really isn't all that innocent and this kid is grinding against his hip without any sexual intentions, it's literally for a bowl of sultanas.

Grabbing the bowl and taking it back out to where the other children are, Harry plops Jack down in his seat and puts the bowl in front of him, but takes it away again when Jack doesn't say thank you. And Jack, of course, looks up at Harry with the most hurt expression because well,  _how could Harry take his sultanas away?!_ So Harry says "what do you say Jack?" and he all but shouts "thank you Harry!!" so Harry hands it back to him, scruffs his hair and tells him that it's okay.

Of course when Harry looks at all of the other kids, he sees that they've moved on from the fruit and are now digging into their lasagne that he prepared earlier while the kids were at school, and he knows that there's absolutely no way Jack is eating any of that, so he goes and grabs himself a bowl and sits down in between Jordan and Jaymee.

He's perfectly content to just sit there and listen to the kids all babble on about nothing, but decides to cut their conversation short when it starts to get above G rated. "Hey guys guess what" he says as a way of distraction and of course it works, all previous conversation dropped. Except for now all of the kids at the table are looking at him and asking "what Harry?" and  _shit_ he should've thought this through better because he has nothing to say. So he flounders for a second and says the first thing that pops into his head, "I got a new water bottle today! I think it's really cool" and for fuck's sake Harry, they're kids and they're easily amused but it's a bloody  _water bottle_  and that's not an interesting topic at all.

Except for that apparently, it is.

All of the kids at the table immediately start asking him _"where did you get it from?"_ and _"what does it looks like?"_ and _"can we see it?"_ and it's a fucking water bottle but he's happy that the topic has changed from who touched someone else's boob on the play ground and back into safer territory. So he tells them to hold on a second and jumps up, runs to the kitchen before the kids can get bored, grabs his water bottle and runs back to his seat.

Which was silly of him because now he's getting told off by the kids. "No running in the hall Harry!" Jayden tells him but then Jaymee cuts in and says "yeah but he's a play leader, he's  _allowed_ to run in the hall" so Harry goes with that and says "exactly! Thank you Jaymee, I'm a play leader, and I can run in the hall if I want to, but you guys can't" because well, the play leaders are the exception to every single rule there is. It's kind of cool actually.

"My name isn't Jaymee" and well shit. Why the fuck do they have to be identical twins? "Sorry Jordan, you two girls look the same and I can never seem to get your name right can I? I'm really sorry" and he really really is, he can't recall a time when he got their name right the first time around. He decides that they need name tags. 

But, kids are forgiving so they both say that it's okay, and the conversation goes back onto about his water bottle, so he shows them and it's really not at all interesting, it's just a $5 plastic water bottle from the local supermarket with a cartoon crocodile on it but they all love it so it's done the job and changed the topic so that's all that matters really.

Everyone finishes their food really quickly and when Harry looks at the clock, he sees that it's already four, he loves how eating takes just under an hour to do, which means that if he does the dishes, he'll be finished by five and it'll be time to go home. He loves the kids, he really really does, but he's tired and wants to go home and he's just glad he doesn't have closing shift tonight because that means he doesn't have to talk to parents - score!

So Harry stands up, points to Katelynn, says "can you help me with the dishes please?" she nods and he's going to get to know the new girl. He loves new kids, loves getting to know what they're like, knowing whether they're going to be difficult or not. He loves finding out stupid information like what they're best memory is and if they like flowers.

Pointing to Jaxon and Jackson, he says "you guys behaved well enough, thank you. Everyone can go play now, put your bowls in the kitchen, stack your chairs and no running in the hall" and all of the kids bustle about, trying to be quick so that they can go and play. Harry thinks it's kind of ridiculous how they try so hard to be fast without running because they'd only be missing on about three minutes extra of playing time if the walked and took their time while putting the bowls in the kitchen and chairs in the back room but child logic has never made sense to him, so he makes his way past some kids and into the kitchen to prepare it for cleaning.

As he's filling up the sink, he asks if Katelynn she can collect the left over bowls from the tables, even though there shouldn't be any but there always is, no matter how hard Harry tries to get all of them to put them away, and Katelynn complies so Harry can tell she's going to be a good kid.

The sink fills, and Katelynn comes back with a couple of bowls and she's still a little bit too short to reach the sink, so he grabs the step for her as he says "alright, you can wash the dishes, i'll dry them and then we can both put them away. How does that sound?" and she nods and says "that's fine" and wow, okay, her voice. Harry immediately loves it. That's probably creepy but he doesn't care. It's the first time he's heard it and it's absolutely adorable.

It's definitely raspy, sounds like she needs to clear her throat, and Harry can't possibly imagine how someone comes to receive a voice like that. Maybe she's been sick? Only one way to find out.

"How was your day Katie? Can I call you Katie?" he asks, and she nods and says "yeah you can. My day was boring, I wanna go back to my old school, back to the same one as my older brother, Lewis. He's not here today though, dad kept him home from school for some reason. Doctors I think." 

And okay well if her brother is sick then maybe she's been sick too. "Is he sick then?" but she replies with "nope, he goes absolutely crazy with sugar, so dad's taking him to get checked out for his sensitivity to sugar and stuff" and well that's just great, does that mean they'll have to watch out what foods they feed the kids now? He hopes not. "Have you been sick recently?" he asks, hoping she doesn't pick up on the bluntness of the question.

But of course she does. "Nah, I never get sick, it's pretty awesome. Last time I was sick, I was so little I don't even remember it. Why do you want to know?" and she looks over at him so questioningly and he doesn't even have an excuse. He really needs to think things through better. "Just wondering" is all he can come up with, but he needs to change the topic, and quick.

"What's your favourite subject at school then?" he asks and that works well enough, and as she goes on some tangent about how she doesn't have a favourite subject because they're all her favourite, Harry can't help but listen to her voice because it actually is really strange, but in a good way. It's kind of higher pitched, and it's just  _so_ raspy. It's so confusing. And Harry is paying so much attention to her voice and the way that it sounds that he doesn't even hear that she's asking him a question so when she says "Har- _ryyyy"_ he snaps out of it and has to ask her to repeat the question. 

So she does, and she just wants to know what she does when she's finished washing the dishes. And he gets back into action, grabs a tea towel from the cupboard above her head, hands it to her and they talk like that for a while, just simple, get-to-know-you kind of stuff and he finds out her favourite colour is blue, she doesn't like playing sport, but loves to paint and it's all trivial stuff that Harry hears from all the kids until she suddenly says "you know, I think you'd be a good dad. You could keep dad happy. He's been really lonely lately, and I don't know why" and she looks up at Harry with so much  _hope_ that he will be her dad that he's suddenly kind of worried because well, where's mum in all of this? So he asks, says, "what about mum? Does she not keep dad happy?" and she just shakes her head.

"I haven't ever seen mum, I don't know where she is. There's no photos of her around the house and dad never talks about her, so I stopped asking. But you're really nice Harry, I think you would be a good mum" and Harry's eyes go as wide as saucers because he isn't a girl, he can't possibly be a mum. But he's curious about the whole family thing, and tries to get a bit more information out of her. 

He puts a bowl away and looks at her as he says "you know I can't be your mum right? Sorry gorgeous, but boys can't be mums, they can only be dads. Does dad have a girlfriend though?" And she looks so sad that Harry can't be her mum, but then she's shaking her head, saying "dad hasn't had girlfriends, only boyfriends, so I sometimes have two dads. But none of them are as good as dad is and they all seem really mean and I don't really like them." and then her little face lights up with an idea and she asks "but you could date dad! I would really like for you to be my dad, Harry! I think you guys would really get along! And I think dad is looking for a boyfriend, because he's getting really desperate and brings home a new boyfriend every night and I can hear him begging them to please stay and to please not leave because he needs to have someone, but they never do stay. I think dad's just really lonely, you know?" well okay. No. Harry doesn't know.

That's odd. Really odd, he should probably keep an eye on this family because it doesn't seem to be going very well at home, and these are the kinds of things he's been trained to look out for and keep an eye on. He goes say something else to her, but is interrupted when Alexia comes in and tells Harry that it's five o'clock and he can go home now. And that went a lot faster than expected, talking animatedly kills time really fast, so he nods, hands her the tea-towel and looks back to Katelynn and tells her "thank you so much for helping me Katie! Would you like to come get a prize for helping? Alexia can finish up here because there's not much left to do, and dad should be here soon to come pick you up so you should go and play. The prize box is in the store room" and he points her in the right direction and heads off to the office so he can sign out.

He sighs when he rights down the time when he started and finished, glad that today is over because he is definitely looking forward to a nice night in, maybe watch some movies or something. He could really do with a wank, it's been a while. Whatever, he plans on a relaxing night and that generally helps.

Once he's grabbed all of his stuff, he leaves the room, locks the door behind him and walks back into the hall, shouting "bye everyone!!" and Jack comes up to him and gives him a hug goodbye, and Katelynn skips over to him and gives him a hi-five then leaves and everyone else just yells out  _"bye Harry!"_ in unison and then he's off.

He opens the door and walks towards his car, cracking his neck and sighing when he hears a voice from behind saying something he doesn't catch but thinks it's directed at him, because hes the only one out here, - or he thought he was - and he whips his head around so fast that he gets a kink in his neck and has to bend down, one hand on his knee and the other on his neck while he scrunches his eyes shut tight and groans in pain because  _fuck,_ that's going to need some attention tonight. 

Harry all but jumps out of his skin when he feels a hand touching his shoulder and he stands up to look at the man in front of him with really fucking blue eyes and the softest looking hair Harry's every seen and it's so goddamn fucking cliché, but this guys eyes are so blue that it's honestly like it's a new shade, and he can't even peg what kind of blue it is. And Harry knows all about the colour spectrum. But he's standing there, looking this guy in the eyes, and admiring the way he looks, and Harry's neck is throbbing so much, and he wishes he could say that he doesn't care because all he ever needs in life is to look into this man's eyes but he can't because his neck is hurting. All those romance novels lied to him, he notes miserably.

So Harry closes his eyes, composes himself, rolls his head around on his neck and supposes that's the best it's going to feel for the time being and when he opens his eyes again, he decides to take in the man fully. He's wearing pretty scuffed up white vans, pale cream chinos that are rolled at the ankle and Harry thinks that that's a tattoo he sees there on each shin. He takes in the plain blue shirt he's wearing and how it's slightly crumpled, a plain grey jumper thrown on over the top, almost as an afterthought and his hair looks like he's just woken up and that's the way it's fallen, but Harry knows that it never works like that, there's always a lot of effort into hair like that.

But then Harry notices his face. And god what a face this man possesses. The sharp jut of his cheek bones that are so defining, his chin that has a bit of stubble on it, and his skin is flawless, with perfectly shaped eyebrows to top it all off. Oh, and did Harry mention his eyelashes? Because they're definitely note-worthy. And that's when Harry realizes that he's definitely just checked this stranger out, who still has his hand on his shoulder and well Harry blushes at that because he hasn't even known the guy for five minutes but he's just completely checked him out and catalogued every detail of him.

"Sorry mate, you alright? Didn't mean to scare you" the man says and what the fuck, did Harry not see his lips before? They're thin, yeah, but they suit his face so perfectly and they're perfectly sculpted which has Harry licking his lips automatically without even realizing it. 

Now Harry hasn't said anything, this beautiful specimen of a human being is waiting for an answer and Harry's just not-so-subtly checked him out. He probably thinks Harry's fucked in the head. Which wouldn't really be a far stretch, Harry probably  _is_ fucked in the head because what the hell is wrong with him and why hasn't he said anything yet? "Um, yeah, no, I'm fine. Thanks. Just turned my head too fast, must've caught a nerve or something. I don't know" he finally gets out with a shrug which must remind the man that he has his hand on Harry's shoulder because he takes it off and damn, Harry misses that hand already.

"I was just asking if it was a long day? You seem worn out, and I'm guessing from the bright pink shirt, that you happen to work at the child care centre?" he asks, and Harry wants to save that voice for later because that voice sounds very very sexy and he could listen to it all day.  _But you need to answer him again Harry_ he tells himself.  _Stop drooling and get on with it!_ "Yeah, yeah long day. Short shift, not many kids, but I don't know, I'm pretty knackered, could go for a sleep that's for sure. My name's Harry" and that's better. Much better. Pat on the back for that one Harry. Ten out of ten. He's finally getting somewhere with this whole interaction thing.

The man nods and extends his hand, says "I'm Louis, Katelynn's dad" and well that's where her raspy voice comes from, but then everything Katelynn told him comes rushing back to mind and Harry wouldn't mind being Louis' boyfriend if it meant he got to be with Louis. Because damn, that'd be worth it.  _It's not just about the looks Harry, what if he's a tosser._ Harry should probably stop talking to himself. Whatever.

He takes Louis' hand and shakes it, fighting a blush that's threatening to rise up his cheeks from what Katelynn has said about her dad, and then he remembers that Katelynn has a brother called Lewis and he starts to laugh and Louis looked absolutely baffled by Harry's sudden outburst of laughter but Harry can't seem to stop. 

Once he's calmed down enough, he says "Katelynn said she has a brother named Lewis. And your name is Louis. They're obviously spelled differently and sound different but why the similar names?" and that's probably not a very nice thing to say but he's just so curious and he doesn't want to lie to Louis so he figured he may as well tell him what he's thinking. But Louis doesn't get offended, he must get asked that a lot, Harry supposes, and brushes it off by saying "yeah i don't even know what we were thinking with that one, my partner at the time loved the name and wrote the name down on the birth certificate without me knowing because they liked the name pronounced that way and well here we are, Louis and Lewis."

Makes sense. What doesn't make sense is why he's still holding Louis' hand. They're not even shaking hands any more. It's just hand holding now. Louis probably, definitely thinks Harry's fucked in the head. So he takes his hand back and says to louis "well I'm off, have a lovely evening Louis, it was nice meeting you. Katelynn was a doll today, brilliant on the walk back from school and helped me with the dishes today after afternoon tea. She got a reward for it, I don't know what she grabbed though, but either way, hope she enjoys it. I'll see you tomorrow Louis" and with that, he turns around and walks back to his car, turns and waves at Louis when he yells back a good bye.

He gets in the car, and groans because yeah, he's fucked in the head. Human interaction is not that hard. So he falls forward and slams his head on the steering wheel which yeah, stupid idea. Now he has a head ache as well. And that'll probably bruise. Wonderful. He needs to get home before he makes a bigger fool of himself.

Blasting the radio in his car, he takes the drive home slowly, - with his track record today, he thinks he may possibly drive off a cliff even though there aren't any, but today isn't his day so he isn't risking it - pulls up in his driveway and sighs in relief when he opens the front door to his house. He'd been lucky enough to get a house, not many people get a house as soon as they leave home, but he'd been given a very big inheritance from his grandparents and he just went and bought a house and now he doesn't have to worry about rent which is great. He just misses his grandparents sometimes. But right now is not the time to think about that because tears plus a headache plus a sore neck is not a good idea.

So he makes his way to the freezer, grabs an ice pack for his head, wraps it in paper towels and sits it on the bench for the time being, then he gets a heat pack out of the linen cupboard, puts it in the microwave for two minutes and grabs his medicine box from the top of the pantry, finding the packet of drowsy pain medication and swallowing two dry, before they get stuck in his throat and he's too lazy to get a cup so Harry just sticks his head into the little alcove on the fridge and under the water dispenser and successfully gets about maybe half a mouthful of water in his mouth which doesn't help the whole tablet-stuck-in-the-throat-thing while the rest dribbles down his face and shirt and onto the floor. Oh well, he'll manage.

When he steps away he can't even bring himself to care about the mess everywhere, he'll clean it tomorrow, but his face is dripping and his shirt soaked, so he takes it off, dries his face with a dry patch on the shirt and flings it somewhere in the kitchen because the microwave just beeped and he needs that heat pack pronto. It probably wasn't a good idea to stick his head at such an awkward angle but whatever. It's done now, no going back.

Grabbing the heat pack and ice pack, Harry makes his way into his bedroom, flicks on the TV that's there and gets comfortable under the blankets, placing the ice pack on his forehead and the heat pack on his neck. It's an interesting combination, a stark contrast between hot and cold, but it's helping. 

Harry's just so tired, it's not even six yet and he feels like he's about to fall asleep and so he does. His thoughts drifting off about Katelynn and Louis and Lewis and what tomorrow will bring.

He doesn't even feel the need to wank tonight. 

Weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This is un-beta'd, please tell me where there is errors)
> 
> Thank you for reading!! I love to hear feedback from people, what you guys think and stuff, it really encourages me to keep writing. 
> 
> My Tumblr is eatsleeplarryrepeat, feel free to message me on there if you've got any questions/ideas/found any mistakes and stuff. Thank you!!
> 
> I take prompts too if anybody wants anything done. Just saying .x


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, okay, I'm so so so so so sorry this took me so long to get out. But man, I kept on getting distracted. First it was by a fic, then it was by another fic, then it was because I was sorting out holiday plans. Then I was on holiday. Then it was another fic. And now i've finally written it. Hope it's okay! It's the longest piece of work i've ever written in my entire lifetime - and i've written a lot for school.
> 
> Basically, i managed to write a lot while i was on the plane going to Melbourne, and then wrote lots in my hotel room. But then I like, actually met Harry Styles in the flesh, and spoke to him, then went to my room and wrote fan fiction about him. 
> 
> What am I doing with my life.

Harry, is, like, 98% sure that he didn't set an alarm last night. Because he's 98% sure he doesn't have work today.

So when he looks over at his clock to see that it's bloody _4:45am_  he groans, of course he does. It's too early for this shit. Yet his phone keeps going, so maybe he did set an alarm. Or maybe the kids at the child care centre decided it would be funny. Wouldn't be the first time.

Except his phone is still going, so he swipes his finger across the screen and rolls over with a sigh because finally, _finally,_  the incessant sound has stopped, _fucking marimba_. Except, now it's been replaced with a tinny voice of someone saying his name. So, like, what the fuck?

When he turns over and has a look at his phone, he sees that it wasn't actually his alarm, it was his phone ringing, and he doesn't even know who's on the other end of the line. Perfect. Just how he wants to start the morning at quarter to five.

Begrudgingly, he picks up the phone and mumbles out a "'lo?" and Harry's pleased with that, hell, it's more than he gets out most mornings.

"Oh Harry! Good! Did I wake you up?" the voice asks and of fucking course they woke him up, it's too goddamn early. The sun isn't even up yet, fuck.

All he can do in a way of a reply is groan a little bit in what he hopes is an affirmative gesture. Apparently it is, because suddenly the voice is back and saying "oh well I'm sorry. But are you free? We need someone to come in and do the morning shift today please. I know you don't like mornings but we desperately need someone to do it and nobody else answered the phone so. Can you?" it's begging and come on, Harry wanted a sleep in. But he loves the kids so fine, whatever, he'll do it.

"Fine, I'll do it" he groans out, sitting up in bed and scrubbing a hand down his face.

The voice says thank you more times than is probably necessary, tells him someone will drop the keys off in his letter box some time within the next hour and to have a good day at work. He's too tired to even know who it was he spoke to. He's too tired to even care.

And really, all that Harry really wants to do right now is to roll over and fall back asleep and pretend that this never happened, because he's just so _tired_. And he could just close his eyes for five more minutes, squeeze as much sleep out of the morning as he can, except for that never works, and five minutes turns into an hour and then he's running late and really, he never feels refreshed after that short bust of sleep so there really isn't any point; but it just seems so enticing that Harry has to have a mental debate and bribe himself with a very chocolatey hot chocolate after his shower and that's what finally gets him to propel his legs off the side of the bed.

Standing up, he slowly stretches his arms above his head, revelling in the satisfying  _pop!_  that each joint all along his spine makes.

With a great sigh, he trudges over to the bathroom, picks up his towel off the back of his desk chair along the way and dumps it on the counter, wincing at his reflection in the mirror – his forehead, as predicted, has bruised. Plus, he could really do with more sleep. His neck is a lot better though.

At least with showers, they wake Harry up marginally. The routine is etched into his muscle memory; he could probably do it in a coma. So he can do everything with his eyes closed because he knows where everything is, and he knows it'll never be moved because it's always where he leaves it. So after he's washed his hair and body, when he opens his eyes he does not expect to see _that_.

Harry is not afraid to admit that the sound he made was definitely higher pitched than any male's voice should be able to go, and that it didn't sound entirely human, but that doesn't matter because there's this _thing_  in his shower and it's a weird browny-red colour and he's never seen it before and ever since he moved to Australia there's been all these weird bugs and insects and it's not fucking _normal_. 

But apparently it is because it's just sitting there, eye level, and having a staring contest with Harry while his eyes are about to fall out of his head, and Harry is kind of scared because this thing is scary. It's got six legs and ridiculously long antennae and that, that right there, in the middle of it's face is a goddamn spike and what the hell could it use that for and okay, Harry really needs to get out of the shower because it's moving and Harry can't stop doing these little girly squeals and it's moving closer and after he catches his foot on the shower curtain and starts to fall _towards the thing_  he's had enough and he is sufficiently awake and he needs to get out, like, _yesterday._

And he doesn't particularly fancy having this thing fall on him so he stands as far away as he can and reaches forward to try and turn the shower taps off and it's _still moving_  and the shower isn't turning off and Harry's getting himself into a panic because _what if this thing stabs him_ and he can't get stabbed by a bug, he's too young to be stabbed to death by a bug so he needs to hurry the fuck up and get a move on already except that it's _flying_  and what the fuck, since when did it have wings?!

But that's enough to get Harry moving faster so he manages to turn the taps off as fast as he can and catches his foot on the shower curtain again and falls onto the tiled floor with a wet _slap_  and his ass is hurting, and not in the good way, and he doesn't even care because he's away from that thing.

Except for that now it's flying around the room and really, Harry needs to get out of there so he grabs his towel off the countertop, scrambles to his feet and only trips three times in his haste to leave the bathroom and shut the door with a loud thump.

Solid effort.

Now that he's safe he can relax and so he slides down the door and just sits there for a good ten minutes, reflecting on how he hates all of the stupid bugs in Australia, and they never had this many weird insects in England and he doesn't even know what that thing was and he just wants his mum to come and give him a cuddle, and so what if he's 23 years old, he's not too old for a cuddle from his mum after he nearly died by a bug.

Maybe he’s being just a little bit overdramatic…

And his mum is always there for him when he discovers a new bug, maybe she's got some weird bug encyclopaedia that she never got to use in England and is using now whenever Harry finds something new and weird and gross. 

Either way, he needs the fly spray so he can kill the damn thing, but he's not even sure if fly spray will work because it isn't a fly and yeah, fly spray works on cockroaches too, but he doesn't know if it'll work on this thing but he can try. First things first though, he needs to ask his mum.

Mustering up as much courage as he can get - this is a very serious situation okay - he grabs his phone from off the bedside table and makes his way into the bathroom, opening the door millimetres at a time in case it flies towards him, which, thankfully it doesn't.

It's just happily sitting there on the bathroom mirror, apparently minding it's own business, which is a relief. So he opens the camera function on his phone, snaps a photo daring to get as close as he can without zooming too much because it depletes the quality of the photo, and sends it off to his mum with the caption 'what in god's name is this?! .x' and heads back out of the bathroom to finish getting ready. He did promise himself a hot chocolate after all.

Seeing as it's only quarter past five – god, he's only been awake for _thirty bloody minutes,_  and he's already had a bug filled, adventurous morning - Harry really can't be bothered to make a hot chocolate properly, so a mug with milk in it goes straight into the microwave while he gets out the cocoa powder.

Leaning back against the counter, Harry's already gotten a reply from his mum which reads 'Good morning to you too sweetheart, that is an Assassin Bug, don't know what it's doing in your bathroom, - which by the way, you should tidy the stuff off the counter - probably got lost somehow. If you want to kill it, drown it in fly spray but otherwise put it outside. Here's a little bit of info: <http://www.ozanimals.com/Insect/Assassin-Bug/Pristhesancus/plagipennis.html> and they've also been known to attack humans sometimes. Best be careful. Love you xo' and well, doesn't that bug just sound like a ray of fucking sunshine.

Usually he gets frustrated at the fact that his mum can’t type a damn text message without turning it into an essay, because _"you might as well get your money’s worth out of each text, Harry”_ , but in these kinds of situations he likes as much information as he can get, as fast as he can get it. After all, he doesn’t particularly fancy getting murdered by a bug.

If that’s possible.

Harry’s pretty sure that it is.

Whatever. The microwave is beeping signalling the heating of his milk is now complete, so he grabs the mug out, pours about five table spoons of cocoa powder into the milk, mixes it and enjoys how it seems to have the same effect as caffeine does for him, it’s really great.

But he has a murderous bug on the loose and if he gets too comfortable drinking his hot chocolate then he’ll probably forget the thing exists and it’ll be pissed off for being locked in the bathroom and probably try to kill him.

Information. That’s what he needs. He would never battle an enemy unprepared so he pulls up the web link on his phone and waits anxiously for the page to load.

What he finds out is that this bug uses its massive spike to not only pierce it’s prey, it injects a poison which kills all of the cells and turns them into a liquid, then sucks it up like it’s a straw.

Well then. Harry’s glad he took extra precautions of being careful now. Though, he’s not entirely sure why it’s in his bathroom, because it’s supposed to live in the foliage or very leafy areas and well, Harry’s bathroom isn’t particularly leafy, last he checked, so.

However the site doesn’t tell him how to kill it, so he has to use his own intuition really, and he’ll go with what his mum suggested. Bucket loads of fly spray, and he’s glad he stores a lot of it because bloody hell, there’s a lot of flies in Australia. And killer bugs. Apparently.

Grabbing two cans of fly spray he goes back to the bathroom and opens the door, the bug is still sitting on the mirror so that’s another bonus to the morning he guesses.

And Harry supposes that he looks ridiculous right about now, holding a can of fly spray in each hand as if they’re a really dangerous weapon, but then again, he lives alone and doesn’t fancy getting slurped up through a dagger nose-straw, so there’s that.

When he sprays it towards the bug it kind of flips its shit and starts to fly around like crazy, so Harry is squealing a little bit and spraying the fly sprays like a maniac, aiming at where he thinks the bug has gone. It finally lands in the junction between the wall and ceiling, and Harry kind of feels bad.

This bug didn’t ask to land in Harry’s bathroom and scare him and be killed by him, but Harry can’t take this risk of being a drink, so he has to push through the feeling and become a murderer. Well, a kind of murderer. Bug murderer. Same thing.

So Harry walks up to underneath the wall, takes a deep breath and sprays both cans as close as he can reach, so that more lands on the bug and it works because it falls off the wall and Harry has to move out of the way so that it doesn’t land on him and Harry really had no idea that he could move so fast, but apparently he can because it’s lying on the floor with its legs twitching, and then a wing twitches and no, no no no, it cannot use it’s wings to start flying around again, so Harry sprays it so much that if it was a creature that could swim, it would be thriving right about now.

That’s how Harry leaves it – lying in a pool of fly spray, on the floor in the middle of his bathroom, because he needs to be triple sure that it’s actually dead.

He goes back into the kitchen, finishes off his cup of hot chocolate after re-heating it, texts his mum saying _‘just killed it, drowned it in fly spray, thanks mum, love you .xo’_ and gets ready for work.

Getting ready for work doesn’t really consist of much, just putting on his black skinny jeans and his lovely pink work shirt, brushing his teeth and shaking out his curls, sweeping the fringe to make sure the bruise is covered and he’s done. It’s not styled very well, but that doesn’t matter. It’s just children.

Of course, he checks on the bug while he’s in the bathroom, it’s still dead. He doesn’t think it’ll pull a Jesus on him and come back to life, but one can never be too sure, Harry thinks.

•∞•

Work passes by in a bit of a blur really. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. The drive was boring, much of the same stuff happened with the kids – Jack refusing to eat, a couple of arguments, walk them to their classes, routine stuff really. So he’s kind of glad to be leaving. He’s tired, it was an eventful morning followed by an uneventful one and Harry could go for a bit of a sleep right about now.

Once Harry gets back to the hall, he locks up the kitchen cabinets, the side and back doors as quick as he can and makes his way to the office, picking up stray toys and putting them where they belong along the way.

He signs out, shuts the office door, enables the alarm system and locks the front door behind him with a nice big sigh.

Just as he’s about to reach his car, he hears a “Harry!” and he’s sure he’s heard that voice before, but can’t quite peg it and has a debate on whether or not to get into his car and pretend he never heard it, or to acknowledge the person.

But the other person decides for him at the same time he realizes who it is, because there’s a hand on his shoulder and that voice saying “oh good, glad I caught you, I actually had something to ask you,” and Harry’s fine with that because when he turns around, he can see that Louis has put in a lot of effort with his clothing today.

He’s got on amazingly tight black jeans that cling really well, and Harry’s pretty sure that he can see a wicked ass on the man, black vans and a plain white t-shirt that shows off collarbones and holy fuck, a neck tattoo as well. It’s way too early for Harry to be dealing with this much beauty standing before him.

Harry just checked this man out very noticeably again, which leads to Louis smirking and saying “oh good, I didn’t just imagine that yesterday. You definitely fancy me” which has Harry blushing all the way through to his bones because that was very straight forward and well yeah, he _does_ fancy the lad, but, no one has ever been that blunt about things like that before.

“Aw cute, you’re blushing. Which also means I’m right,” he continues, and that only makes Harry blush an even deeper shade of red – if that’s at all possible, “I have, a very very large favour to ask of you” he concludes.

And oh god, Harry is one of those people that just can’t say ' _no'_ to pretty boys like Louis, so of course, he says “um, yeah, okay?” and he kind of hopes that it comes across that that’s an affirmative for Louis to continue because that was pretty vague, even to Harry.

Either way, it’s enough of an affirmation for Louis because he’s talking again, “right, well, this is a very forward question that I think I know the answer to. Are you gay?”

Well, whatever Harry had been expecting, it wasn’t _that_ , and he doesn’t even know what he was expecting really. After a bit of sputtering, he manages to get out a “yeah, why? Is that an issue?” because he’s had parents pull their children out of day care because of it before. Wasn’t exactly fun.

The excuses had always been the same _“oh no, it’s not you personally Harry, it’s just, I can’t have my children being in an environment that is encouraging gay”_ like it’s some kind of a disease that he’ll spread to the children simply by being in the same room as them. And every time, it hurt just as much as the last.

“No of course not, I’m about as straight as your hair mate, it just means that this will be a lot less of an awkward question to ask, is all. Next question, are you single, married, taken, widower? Anything not listed above?”

“No, definitely not taken or married, which isn’t legal here in WA, which also removes the option of a widower, which, isn’t that women who become widowers? Either way, no, I’m not any of those so yes, I am single” he replies, raising a questioning eyebrow at Louis.

Louis just grins and exclaims “brilliant!” before getting into the passenger side of Harry’s car. Huh.

So Harry gets in his side of the car, turns to Louis, asks, “alright there mate?” and Louis nods and informs him to drive home as per usual so of course, who is Harry to deny a pretty boy in his car?

He starts the car and gets about halfway before asking the question he probably should’ve asked _before_ turning on the car and driving home. Oh well, it’s too late now. “Why am I taking you to my house by the way? You don’t plan on killing me on my own turf do you?” he asks, raising an eyebrow as he glances sideways at a still grinning Louis.

“Well, young Harold, I have a very big favour to ask of you, it’s a long story, and you should feel comfortable while processing the information, not standing in a parking lot of a child care centre. Make sense?”

And it does, so Harry nods and the rest of the drive is silent.

Louis whistles when Harry pulls up the drive, murmurs a “nice digs” that has Harry blushing again while he gets out of the car.

Rather dumbly, he says, “so this is my home. Welcome. I guess” walks towards the door and clicks the button to lock the car once he hears Louis shut the door, opens his house door and walks inside, drops his keys in the bowl by the doorway and makes his way to the kitchen.

He hears Louis shut the front door and take off his shoes so he calls out “in the kitchen! Would you like anything to drink?” and grabs out two mugs when Louis answers him with a “tea please” and then “black with no sugars” right behind him, which startles him a bit because woah, Louis apparently walks fast.

Louis snorts and points to the puddle of water on the floor in front of the fridge, which Harry groans and answers with "yeah, don't ask hay" to which Louis just nods.

Once the tea is made, Harry shows Louis to the lounge room area that hardly ever gets used, it’s got a really nice comfy couch that cost Harry just about an arm and a leg, a wicked TV that cost him his other arm and leg. But it’s worth it because it’s lovely, and Louis approves. Not that he had any intention of Louis when he bought the house a long time ago, but he’s just really glad that Louis likes it.

“This is proper brilliant, mate” Louis says while looking around.

“Thanks” is all that Harry can manage to reply with, he’s too busy observing Louis observe the room.

Then Louis suddenly gets serious and looks right at Harry and says “okay, question time. Will you be my boyfriend? Or, fake boyfriend? Or, partner? Or someone, please?” and Harry can only stare at Louis like he just grew four extra arms and an elephant head on his back while doing a triple somersault on a tight rope because _what?!_

Louis wants Harry to be his boyfriend? Or fake boyfriend? Or partner? Or someone? That’s just, that’s just weird. Isn’t it? They hardly know each other, met once before today, which was _yesterday_ and Harry doesn’t really do the whole dating thing with people he doesn’t know.

But then his conversation with Katelynn comes back, and maybe Louis has a really good explanation for this.

And he does apparently, because Louis announces “I can explain” and Harry just sits there expectantly because Louis is failing to explain.

He sighs and looks Harry in the eyes while he tells Harry his explanation.

“Right, okay, so I’ll start from the very beginning. Basically, a while ago I had a girlfriend, she was essentially my beard that I had, really as a way to prove to not only everyone else, but myself, that I wasn’t gay. And I figured the way to not be gay was to have a girlfriend, and just keep having sex with her. I mean, I could get it up, but it wasn’t from attraction, mostly just from the fact that someone was touching me and I was horny.

“Probably too much information, but it’s kind of relevant to the situation. Anyways, this one day, she comes home and announces  _'babe, I’m pregnant’_ and I was like _'what? No you can’t be, we always used protection and you’re on the pill’_ , except for that she then admitted that she never _was_ on the pill, but was just saying that she was.

“So then we had a child, he was born and she fucked right off as soon as he was born, because she’d found out that I was gay and broke up with me a couple months into the pregnancy. I’d found a boyfriend shortly after that, and he was willing to raise a child with me, because she decided that she didn’t want the child if the father was never around. Or if he was gay. Because apparently that’s a gene that gets passed down to your children and oh no, she couldn’t have a gay child.

“Anyways, so when my son was born, my partner decided he would name him Lewis, and wrote it down on the birth certificate before I got a say in anything. He then decided about five months later that he couldn’t handle a child, so I was alone, I was seventeen and was gay and no one wanted me, didn’t have a home I could go to because I was kicked out not only for being gay, but for getting a girl pregnant _while being gay_ and while I was seventeen.

“I mean, it’s not like I intended the pregnancy to happen, I was fucking _gay_ and _seventeen_ but it happened anyway and that’s how I have Lewis. Then, two years later I decided that I definitely wasn’t gay, found myself a new girlfriend and lo and behold, within three months, she was pregnant as well.

“I ended up crying a lot, because I couldn’t handle having two children at the age of nineteen, but I lived up to my responsibilities because she didn’t want an abortion, but didn’t want to keep it, and didn’t want me around. So, there I was, alone again but this time with two children.

“I was struggling to pay the rent to my shitty flat, that was barely legal within itself, yet was sustaining two children and an adult. I had no job because no where would hire me because I couldn’t afford a baby sitter, and I couldn’t take them to work with me, so I couldn’t get a job.

“I ended up surviving off the income of boyfriends. As shitty and horrible as that sounds. I was young, and desperate and could barely keep myself alive, let alone my two children who were depending on me. But I made it by, jumping from relationship to relationship; giving them everything they wanted in return for the next fortnight’s rent.

“And it went on like that for a while. As the children got older, I would leave them in the care of a babysitter that my partner at the time would pay for, and I’d go from job to job because they always seemed to find someone better or more qualified to fill the position.

“One partner wanted to go on a holiday to Australia and took me and the kids along, but then we broke up and he left us here which is how I came to find myself residing in the great land of Oz.

“Both kids were finally old enough for school, and I sent them to a public school so I wouldn’t have to pay for tuition if I couldn’t afford it. I found a job that allowed me to work during school hours and I finally managed to have enough money to be able to keep food on the table, and the kids were looking a lot healthier which was a relief.

“I still needed the support from someone else, to be able to pay rent and electricity and water, but not having to pay for schooling helped a lot, and it meant I could save a bit of money too.

“I did however go through a pretty low point throughout all of this. I got diagnosed with depression and had to go to psychology, went through multiple occasions of self-harm and attempted suicide, which I _know_ is wrong, because it wasn’t just myself that depended on me.

“But I just couldn’t do it, it was difficult and I was selfish and wanted to take the short way out. It landed me in hospital quite a lot of times, which of course were a lot more medical bills until I became a citizen and could go through the public health system, which cut a lot of costs.

“I ended up finding a new boyfriend, who I was with for a couple of years, he then broke up with me, saying ' _thankyou for the experience, it’s been fun. You were an awesome shag’_  which of course left me gutted and didn’t help the whole depression thing.

“I am working on it though, that you can be sure of. I go to psychology once a week to help get past it. The part I need your help with, however, is the fact that my latest ex, reported me to child services, saying I was an unfit parent and when Department of Child Protection came to evaluate my life, stated that unless I found a legitimate partner within the next six weeks, who could help support my life and my children, they would both be taken away from me.

“I’ve been desperate enough to hire strippers and beg them to help, I’ve tried looking for partners in bars, and no one will be with me. It’s embarrassing and shameful and I hate it because I love my children, and I’ve finally been able to care for them properly and now they’re going to be taken away from me!

“It’s hard, Harry. I’ve worked so hard for my children and I have a nine year old and a seven year old and I can’t let them get taken away from me, they’ll resent me for it forever, hell, _I’ll_ resent me forever if that happens.

“And I know it’s such a major thing to ask from you, and I really am sorry. I just, I’m desperate, you know? It doesn’t have to be for real, it can be fake, we just have to be able to prove that we know each other as well as a couple would know each other and then I’ll leave you alone, and you can be free to live your life normally, without me, and I wont judge you for it.

“Katelynn already loves you, she kept on saying how much she loved you, and how she wanted you to be her mum, but corrected herself when she remembered you saying that boys can’t be mums, but they can be dads, and she kept asking if you would be her dad.

“And if you agree to it, we wouldn’t have to tell the kids what we’re doing, that way they won’t be upset once it all ends. I just really need your help Harry, please?”

Louis started crying about halfway through his telling of the story, and Harry started crying towards the end when Louis was saying how hard it was to keep his kids alive while struggling to keep himself alive.

And what he says next is barely a whisper, because he can’t speak around the lump in his throat, and he’s not sure if it even came out right, but he croaks a “yes” and Louis obviously heard him correctly because his eyes go so wide and he barely manages out a “really?” in the same voice Harry has right now, and then he’s bounding over to where Harry is sitting and hugging him and crying into his shoulder so hard that Harry is worried that Louis will lose all of his body fluids just from crying.

But Harry is more than happy to sit there and hold Louis while he cries, because Harry knows that it’s nice to have someone comfort you when you open up entirely to another person.

So he rubs circles on his back and hums a tune in between telling him that it’s okay, he’ll help get Louis through this, he won’t get his children taken away from him, Harry won’t allow it. Slowly Louis calms down until he’s just sitting in Harry’s arms, exhausted and shaking a bit from the after effects of crying, sniffing into Harry’s shirt and trying to compose himself again.

“I’m sorry about that, oh god, your shirt” Louis groans when he sees he’s completely soaked Harry’s shirt, but Harry just shakes his head and murmurs that it’s fine.

Louis is slowly drifting off to sleep in Harry’s arms, and he doesn’t even look comfortable, leaning over at an awkward angle. So Harry readjusts them so that they’re lying down more comfortably, Harry on his back and Louis lying face down on Harry’s chest.

Louis sighs once, and that’s when Harry realizes that Louis is out like a light, safe and warm in Harry’s arms. And it’s strange, because they’ve only known each other a day, agreed to a fake relationship and now they’re lying on the couch together, cuddled up in each others arms like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

And maybe it could be, because Harry’s never felt this comfortable with someone so soon before in his entire life. And before Harry’s even realized it, he’s asleep and dreaming of all the possibilities with Louis.

•∞•

Harry can’t remember the last time he’s woken up with a dead weight on his chest and in his arms, with a warm breath puffing on his neck. And Harry is pretty sure that he didn’t sleep with anyone recently. So naturally, he can’t figure out why there is indeed, a heavy weight on his chest and breath on his neck that is tickling him.

And then when he opens his eyes, he sees it’s Louis, is confused for all of ten seconds, and then he remembers what happened that morning.

Harry has come to the conclusion that Louis looks beautiful in his sleep, from what he can see when he twists his head awkwardly, that is. His features have smoothed out, and yeah, his eyes are puffy and they’re going to be red, and his lips are red and swollen and he has tear tracks down his cheeks, but he still looks beautiful and Harry wonders if it’s possible for Louis to look anything but.

He really doesn’t want to wake Louis, but he needs to pee, and there’s no way he can get himself out from underneath Louis without waking him up. But he puts it off for as long as he can, waiting until his bladder is actually going to explode, and looks at his phone to see the time, and it’s 5:43pm and _shit_ , the child care centre closes at six, and is ridiculously priced for every minute there is a child there over six o’clock.

He sits up abruptly, and Louis is forced into a very awkward position that sends him tumbling to the floor, and he lands with a very loud thump and an accompanying groan.

“Oh, my, god. Harry, what the actual fuck was that for?” when Harry looks over, he sees that Louis is lying on the floor clutching his shoulder and pulling a very disgruntled face.

“I’m about to explode from piss, and check the time. I’ll be right back, meet me at the car” he yells over his shoulder as he runs through the house and guesses Louis gets what he means when there’s a loud _“FUCK!”_ echoing through the house and a litany of “shit, shit, shit, fuck, shit” then the front door slamming closed.

Harry can only laugh at Louis’ reaction as he finishes off, washes his hands and runs outside, grabbing his keys along the way.

They’ve got fifteen minutes to get the centre, and clearly Louis doesn’t think they’ll make it there in that time because he’s jumping from foot to foot saying “come _on_ Harry, hurry up!” and pulling at the door handle like a mad man.

When they’re in the car and on the way there, they don’t talk much, the only thing that gets said is “Louis it’s fine, it doesn’t take long to get to work, trust me, I do it all the time” by Harry, and the rest of the time is just sitting there in silence while Harry drives and Louis tries not to have a heart attack.

Once they get to the centre, Louis jumps out of the car so fast that Harry thinks he might break something if he trips, but Harry just decides to wait in the car for them to come back.

He hasn’t even discussed with Louis if they’re coming back to his house, he’s kind of just assuming that they are, and he’s starting to get really worried about whether he’s being presumptuous or not, but then Louis is coming back out with Katelynn and Lewis and walking towards the car, so Harry supposes that Louis is on the same wavelength as he is.

“HARRY!” both of the kids yell in unison as they get in the car and Harry laughs because he hasn’t even met Lewis yet but he’s excited to see him.

“Hey guys, how are you? Katie, you need a booster seat love, let dad put it in the car before you sit down. Hi Lewis, it’s nice to finally meet you, was school good?” he asks them, turning around and watching Katelynn attempt to help Louis buckle the booster seat in.

“Yeah it was good, got in trouble, but it’s not anything out of the ordinary. Dad’s really late today, why’s he so late? Is it because he was with you?”

“Sorry about that, dad and I were talking and got distracted, didn’t realize what the time was. He still picked you up though!” Harry replies, careful to avoid the topic of sleeping and crying because kids always jump to conclusions when two people and sleep is mentioned, and crying means that they worry and he’s guessing that Louis is the kind of man to not want his children to know he had been crying.

Even though the signs are clearly visible. Harry was right, his eyes are puffy and swollen, there are tear tracks running down his cheeks and his eyes are rimmed with a thin line of red. But that’s not something that a child would pick up on, they’re too young to understand what that could mean.

The car ride back to Harry’s house is short, but filled with so much chatter going on it’s hard for Harry to keep up. His car has never been so busy and busting with life before. He’s really glad he doesn’t have to do the pickups now; he’s not sure how he’d cope with four children in his car. He used to beg to do them, but they would always get assigned to someone else. He thinks that he gets why the other workers complain about them now.

So he leaves the conversation to Louis and his children, and he’s more than happy to observe the dynamic between a father and his kids. It’s clear that Louis loves his kids so much; he’s constantly turning around in his seat to see them, his eyes light up whenever they tell him anything that’s even vaguely interesting, and he’s fully engaged in the entire conversation.

And Harry loves that. He’s always wanted that kind of a relationship when he found the right person. He’s known that he wants to settle down and have kids of his own, no matter how difficult that would turn out to be because he isn’t interested in girls.

Right now, he’s seeing how much he’s missing out on, and he wants that so bad. The next however many months he’s with Louis, are going to be some of the best ones of his lives. And Harry knows right now, that he’s going to be so fucked by the end of it.

But it’s worth it. Because Louis is happy, the kids are happy, and Harry’s happy. And that’s all that matters right?

When they pull up to Harry’s house, the questions of “where are we?” and “is this your house Harry?” and “wow it’s so big! Do you own this house Harry?” just keep flying at him and he’s finding it hard to deal with so he answers them all at once.

He stands in front of the door, looks at them and says, “so! Who’s keen for a sleepover tonight? I thought your dad and you guys could stay at mine for tonight, and for however long you guys want, whenever you want. So enjoy it! Yes, it’s my house, yes, I own it, and please don’t break anything. But, enjoy yourself and go and explore!” and opens the door with a flourish as the kids run inside, throw their bags down in the hallway and run off to discover where everything is.

And then he realizes that he just said that someone else’s children can stay at his house, and he’s practically a stranger to them. Although, he _did_ agree to be a fake partner so he supposes it’s not that far of a stretch for partners to be staying in the same house, like, that’s what a family is after all.

Except for that Louis and Katelynn and Lewis are pretty much random people and he might as well just go and invite the local hobo or something to come to his house too while he’s at it because like, they’d be a stranger, and these people are strangers.

But they’re not _entirely_ strangers, because he knows Katelynn but he doesn’t know Lewis. He does kind of know Louis though, well, he knows he wants to jump Louis’ bones, but that doesn’t count does it? Or does it..?

Fuck, Harry doesn’t know. Although, he wouldn’t go around inviting people he saw in a shopping centre back to his house just because he thought they were fit.

Okay, no, that’s a lie. He did that once. Didn’t end up too well though. The guy ended up stealing a lot of stuff from Harry’s place while he wasn’t paying attention. He looked trustworthy though!

Maybe Harry’s just too trusting. Like, what if Louis or any of Louis’ kids steal anything? No, okay, Harry doesn’t think that they will. They don’t seem like those kind of people.

No, Harry doesn’t think Louis would steal anything. He’s got to give him a chance, can’t go jumping to negative conclusions all the time. Right, okay.

That’s that sorted. But like, Harry definitely didn’t ask if it’s okay with Louis that they stay over at his house tonight, he just _assumed_ that it would be okay. And like, what if it’s not? Then he’s just gone and made a massive fool out of himself and Louis probably thinks that Harry is mental, and like, he probably is a little bit, but Louis doesn’t need to _know_ that.

He’s more than happy to pretend that Louis thinks that he’s completely sane, regardless of whether or not he’s entirely functional. Whatever.

“You’re not crazy, or mental, Harry.”

What. Did he just _talk_ to himself?! No. No he did not, that was definitely Louis’ voice. But. It answered him. Louis answered his thoughts. Maybe Louis can read minds. Oh god, if Louis can read minds then Louis definitely knows that Harry wants to push him down onto the floor and sit on his dick. Oh shit.

No, Harry is definitely crazy. People can’t read minds. What is he even thinking?

And why is there a voice laughing? Is it laughing at him? Like, Harry knows he’s a bit crazy but he’s never had a voice inside his head like, proper _laugh_ at him before.

“Harry, Harry mate. Stop, you’re going to give yourself an aneurism” the voice is saying and oh. _Oh_. That’s Louis’ voice. But yeah no he knew that. Just. Oh.

Oh shit.

Harry turns around cautiously, realizing that he’s still standing in his doorway, and no, oh god, no, when he sees Louis he can see that Louis is keeling over with laughter, wiping at his eyes while attempting to clutch his sides and also attempting to hold himself up.

He looks like he’s going to fall on the floor he’s laughing so hard.

So, Harry must’ve been talking out loud, but like, he didn’t think he was. But, obviously that’s not the case. Unless he’s got something on his back. Probably not. And he doesn’t want to ask, but he probably should, so he does.

“Was I saying that out loud?” and he honestly could just cry at this point because he has a very strong feeling that he was saying that out loud, and that’s, well that’s just embarrassing, and he doesn’t normally speak out loud, unless you know, it’s in a conversation or something.

And Louis is just bent over, with his hands on his knees, kind of wheezing a little bit and murmuring, “oh fuck, my sides, my sides hurt. _Jesus_. Fuck” before he manages to stand up properly.

He takes a massive breath, looks up to the sky and back at Harry, and nods with a very solemn expression on his face.

Shit.

“How much was I saying…?”

“Well, Harry, I heard everything from you wanting to shag me and push me to the floor to sit on my dick, to you thinking that you’re crazy because you thought I could read minds, to you thinking I’m a thief. Which, for the record, I’m not, but, glad you came to the conclusion that you could trust me” and to top it all off, he finishes it with an award winning smile, claps a hand on Harry’s shoulder, and walks inside.

And Harry’s just kind of standing there, looking at the place Louis once stood, listening to Louis mumble “sit on my dick” and giggle and he kinds of wants to jump off a very, very large cliff. Or you know, stick his feet in a bucket of cement, let it dry, then dive into the Indian Ocean.

He thinks that maybe the fish will have a better use for his brain than he will.

He has no idea how long he just stands there, appalled at his own behaviour, but he does know that he should go inside. Maybe. Probably.

So he turns around, shuts the door behind himself as he walks inside, and discovers that everyone is sitting in his lounge room just watching TV happily. And Harry really admires the way that a family looks together. How everyone lies on top of each other, and they don’t seem to mind.

Louis is sitting on the couch facing the TV with Katelynn on the floor in front of him with her legs crossed while he braids her hair, and Lewis is lying across the couch, feet dangling over the edge with his head resting in Louis’ lap.

That’s when Harry realizes that this is the most amount of family that’s ever been inside his home, and it’s not even his. He doesn’t even have any right to be viewing this moment, it’s one of those things that seems private. Reserved, per se, for people who love each other, and who belong.

And Harry in that moment, for some strange reason, he wants to belong with them. He wants to be amongst that mix of Tomlinson, wants to join them on the couch, cuddle up on Louis’ right side, put his arm around him, to play with the soft hairs at the nape of Louis’ neck. Wants to rest his head on Louis’ shoulder and close his eyes and just relax, and enjoy the feeling of _family_ and  _home_.

But it’s not his, and it probably never will be. He can pretend that it’s his, and he agreed to pretend that it’s his. But the matter of the fact is that Louis will be out of his life, taking his children with him, as soon as he’s in the clear.

And that hurts more than it should. He has no right. He’s known these people for a day, and they’re not his, it’s not his place in there, he doesn’t belong in there. He’ll have that himself one day, and he’ll enjoy it a hell of a lot. But for now he can only imagine, and he can only pretend.

And if he’s maybe already fallen for Louis and Katelynn and Lewis, well then, that’s his problem that he’s going to have to deal with, and that’s something he’ll have to get over. Because none of them are his, and he can’t get too attached. That’s a dangerous situation.

He’s doomed. He really, really is. He can feel it now, this is going to hurt him when it’s all done and he can go back to being just him and not pretending to be in a relationship with Louis. Harry feels too much, he gets too emotionally attached to situations and it always hurts him in the end.

And he knows this one will be no different.

Harry leans against the doorway, and watches as Louis ties off Katelynn’s hair with a hairband, and she crawls up on his other side, resting her head on his unoccupied thigh.

Louis looks up and catches Harry’s eye, and gives him a soft smile, then a wink and it suddenly isn’t a soft smile anymore, it’s a filthy one that leaves Harry blushing like a school girl and feeling very, very awkward.

So he coughs, which gets the attention of the children, and asks “I can’t be bothered making anything for dinner, so who wants pizza?”

Lewis and Katelynn both sit up so fast that Harry’s worried they might have gotten whiplash or something.

“You have to ask dad first, though” he says and nods his head towards Louis. He wouldn’t want to get them food dad doesn’t approve of.

But Louis nods his head, says “sure” and well, that’s that. Pizza is acceptable dinner food for the Tomlinson family. Thank fuck.

As Harry goes through the orders of what everyone wants, he calls up the pizza company and orders a Hawaiian, meat lovers and a supreme to share with everyone, and settles into the TV room to wait for them to arrive.

They’re partway through some stupid kids show Harry has never heard of until today, called ‘Good Luck Charlie’ or something like that, when the doorbell rings, and thank _god_ Harry doesn’t have to watch the stupid show anymore. It’s absolutely horrible and childish and isn’t even funny but he has to laugh along because otherwise he gets the whole “Harry, why aren’t you laughing? That was funny! You’re so _lame_ ” speech from one or both of the children, and there’s only so many times he’ll be called lame in one sitting, thank you very much.

So he’s more than happy to pay the deliveryman for the required $52.94 for the overpriced pizza, because it gets him away from the stupid show.

Taking them back into the TV room, he takes his seat back on the floor and everyone follows suit, grabs a piece of pizza from a random box and eats it like that, spilling pizza toppings everywhere and no one’s giving a damn.

Except maybe Harry does a little bit, but he’s got black carpet so he’s not too fussed about stains or anything.

“So,” Louis says suddenly around a mouthful of pizza, it’d been quiet up until this point, bar the low murmur of the TV, due to the fact that everyone was stuffing their faces full of food, no room for a voice in their mouths with all that pizza. “I think I’ll go run home and grab a couple of bags of clothes, so you kiddies can sleep in something more comfortable than school uniforms, and I’ll grab some stuff for me and then when I get back, we can all go to bed yeah?”

The children nod, still too busy eating to bother answering properly. “Sure” Harry says, nodding at Louis. “Would you like to borrow my car? I mean, I brought you here, so you don’t have your own car to drive back to yours or anything, and I’m not sure the buses come past this late anyways.”

“Yeah, that’d be great, thank you so much Harry” Louis replies, standing up and wiping his hands on his pants.

“Alright, keys are in the bowl by the front door. Please be careful, don’t speed, don’t be stupid, I’ll see you when you get back.”

“Of course, yeah, thanks” Louis nods his head and turns to leave. He turns around once to give his kids a pointed look and says “behave, you two, I mean it” and then he’s gone.

Once he hears the front door open and close, Harry stands up and goes to pick up the empty pizza boxes from the floor, next to the children who are rolling around, groaning “ughhhhhh, I ate waaayyyy too much.”

Harry laughs at the kids because yeah, that’s a feeling he knows all too well. He chucks the boxes off towards the kitchen area somewhere because he really can’t be bothered going out to the bins tonight, so he’ll deal with it tomorrow.

“Come on kiddos, let’s get the beds sorted so you can get comfortable while you wait for dad. The couch here turns into a bed, and I do have a spare mattress somewhere, but I’m not entirely sure where it is at the moment, so for tonight you guys will have to share a bed, sorry. But one night shouldn’t hurt, right?”

“Nope!” Katelynn yells, and Lewis adds “we share a bed every night, so that’s okay Harry!” and huh, okay then. That’s fair enough if they’re tight for money, sharing beds makes sense, saves on extra sheets and a whole extra bed and stuff, seems logical.

“Okay sweet! Right, well I’ll get you guys to help me change the couch into a bed if that’s okay with you guys, and then I’ll grab some blankets and pillows and we’ll be all set, sound good?” he asks and both the kids nod eagerly.

In hind sight, setting up the fold-out bed would’ve been a lot easier if he’d done it himself, because the kids have absolutely no idea what to do, and they just grab random things and pull and hope that it works. And it takes them a solid ten minutes to get it set out properly, when really it should’ve taken under a minute, but.

The kids are having fun, so that’s all that matters.

Once it’s set up and the safety lock is switched on, Harry goes to the linen cupboard and grabs two pillows, a kind sized doona and a sheet and figures that’ll be enough. So he takes the stuff out and gives the kids the task of figuring it out while he goes to get changed into some sweats and a shirt, grabbing two extra shirts for the kids to wear for now so they’re at least out of their uniform.

The kids completely botched setting the bed up, the doona is sideways and the sheet is on top, even the pillows are sitting in the middle of the bed, and Harry can’t help but laugh at the sight because he should’ve known better than to leave that big of a task to children.

So he gives each of them his shirts while he fixes the bed and they get changed, with shouts of “Lewis! Stop looking at me” and “I’m not looking at you!” and “turn around Katelynn!” but they’re in his shirts by the time he’s finished and they jump into the bed happily.

“Are you guys tired?” he asks, because they look like they’re about to fall asleep at any moment, their eyes are drooping closed and they’re yawning so much that Katelynn’s jaw cracks and she’s moaning about that half-heartedly while slowly drifting off to sleep.

Smiling, he bids them good night, turns the light off and is about to head off to bed when the front door opens and closes, and keys are dropped into a bowl.

He quickly pads over to the door and whispers a “shhhh” to Louis so he knows to be quiet, locks the door and leads Louis towards his room.

Once they get there, he flicks on the light and sprawls out on his bed. “They both got really tired, so we set up the fold-out bed and they’re in my shirts because they’re comfier than school clothes, and they pretty much passed out as soon as their heads hit the pillow. They didn’t brush their teeth or anything, hope that’s alright,” he says to Louis who’s standing there rather awkwardly in the doorway.

Louis nods and shuffles his feet against the carpet, then gestures with his thumb back over his shoulder and says “right, well, I guess I’ll head off too then, I’ll just sleep down there with the kids. Thank you so much for this Harry, it means a lot, really. I promise you won’t be sorry for doing this for me.”

“It’s not a problem Louis. And don’t be daft, you can sleep in my bed tonight if you like, I mean, if we’re going to make this seem real then I suppose we should get to know each other really well, and I don’t mind sharing the bed either. It’s a lot comfier than the couch, trust me.”

“Are you sure? Like, I don’t want to be any more of a burden or anything.”

“Yeah Louis, it’s fine, honest. I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t serious” he states, with a smile on his face as he moves over to make more room on the bed.

Louis nods and grabs some clothes out of the bag, looks at Harry awkwardly before stripping down to his briefs and putting on his own sweats and shirt. He shoves his clothes into the bag and walks over to the bed, sitting down tentatively for a second before Harry rolls his eyes, grabs his waist and pulls him so that he’s lying down.

They both laugh, and it must be all Louis needed to feel comfortable and confident again because he relaxes in Harry’s arms and sighs.

“Just for the record,” Louis says, a grin on his lips as he looks up at Harry, “I think you’re like, proper fit and I wouldn’t mind half of the things you were saying earlier” and completes it with a wink.

Harry is stunned into momentary silence, and then he kind of splutters a little bit, pulls back from Louis and his face flushes the deepest shade of red because _oh my god_ he’d forgotten about that completely.  _How could he forget about that?_

That has Louis cackling like a madman and Harry withdraws his arms completely and turns around to face the wall in shame because now Louis’ messing with him and that’s not fair, because Harry kind of really fancies this guy and now he’s just messing with Harry and what as Harry thinking, agreeing to this?

But Louis slowly stops laughing, and wraps his arms around Harry’s waist from behind. Struggling to get his left arm underneath Harry because of the fact that Harry is lying on his side, and he gives up eventually, and just tucks it in up close to his chest as he scoots closer to Harry.

“I’m serious, you know” Louis murmurs into the back of Harry’s neck, sending shivers down his spine.

Louis places soft little kisses along the back of Harry’s neck, dotting each vertebrae as far as he can until there’s a shirt, then makes his way around the collar of the shirt and kisses the juncture between his neck and shoulder, which has Harry moaning a little bit and tilting his head to allow better access.

He keeps placing little feather light kisses along Harry’s neck, and behind his ear, which is driving Harry mental, because he’s being so soft and gentle, and Harry doesn’t think he can possibly handle soft and gentle but he doesn’t want Louis to stop because it also feels so good and he’s torn between turning around and ravishing Louis or staying where he is and enjoying this feeling.

He ends up deciding on a compromise, he turns around in Louis’ arm and kisses him gently, allows himself to enjoy the feeling of Louis’ lips on his, the way his lips are slightly chapped but still really soft.

The soft little breathy moans Louis is making as the kiss turns slightly more heated. Louis swipes his tongue against Harry’s lips, asking for entrance and Harry gives it right away, welcoming Louis’ tongue into his mouth eagerly.

Harry runs his hand up Louis’ side, and finds purchase at the base of Louis’ skull, and keeps his hand there, holding gently enough so that if Louis wants to pull away at any time, he can, but enough force to show that he really wants Louis to stay right where he is.

And Louis gets the hint, because he turns them over so that Harry’s lying on his back and Louis is straddling his hips, deepening the kiss even further, turning it up a notch by grinding his hips down into Harry’s.

Harry moans low and deep into Louis’ mouth at the friction of Louis grinding down on him and ruts his hips up, chasing the feeling because fuck, that feels good on his rapidly hardening dick.

He grabs the hem of Louis’ shirt and pulls it up slowly, allowing Louis to stop him at any time he wishes, and he doesn’t. So when it gets caught up to his armpits, he has to break away from the kiss, panting heavily, to pull it off the rest of the way.

Diving back in like kissing Harry is a his lifeline, Louis begins to trail kisses down Harry’s jaw and neck, nipping gently at his pulse point.

Harry’s groans out a “Louis” and Louis grabs Harry’s shirt by the collar, sits back and pulls Harry up with him, and pulls his shirt off with so much force that for a brief second, Harry worries about whether or not it ripped at all.

But then, Harry realizes that he couldn’t actually care less. So he allows Louis to fling it somewhere to a random corner of the room and gets a good look at Louis’ chest.

The Australian sun obviously does wonders for Louis complexion, his skin is all tan and golden, and he’s got very clearly defined muscles along his arms and stomach, but he’s not all sharp angles and bones either. He’s got the perfect mix of sharp and curvy and Harry is so, so turned on by this man on top of him.

Louis pushes Harry back down onto the bed, and grinds his hips down again hard and fast, but with so much precision that Harry almost comes right then and there because _god_ , it’s been so long and Louis is so fit, and this is so much better than his right hand man.

They manage to find a rhythm between Louis grinding down and Harry rutting up into Louis, and it’s blissful and wonderful and Harry can already feel himself getting to the very edge and Louis can obviously tell because he’s leaning back down and kissing Harry with a bruising force.

Harry reaches up and grabs onto Louis’ hips, moving Louis exactly how he wants him to move, lining them up perfectly and when Louis begins to play with Harry’s nipples that very nearly sends him toppling over the edge because _fuck_ , Louis sure knows what he’s doing.

Louis pulls back and bites his bottom lip, looks at Harry filthily and starts talking to him.

“Harry, god you’re so amazing, fuck, so beautiful all flushed and lying beneath me. And you know what Harry? I know you want this, and I know you want to, what was it you said? Oh yeah, sit on my dick, and you will Harry, trust me, you will. Not tonight though. But next time maybe, but I want to see if you can come just from this. Just from me grinding down into you, do you think you can do that Harry? If you can, next time I’ll let you fuck me. Or maybe, maybe I’ll fuck you senseless and you won’t even know how to walk properly the next day.

Would you want that Harry? I know you want that, I can see it in the way you look at me, the way you were saying so eloquently earlier how you want to push me down onto the floor, so you can just sit on my dick and have me buried deep inside of you, and it’ll be amazing Harry, won’t it? It’ll be so fucking good, and you know it will.”

Louis grinds his hips down particularly hard as he punctuates the final words of his sentence and it sends Harry over the edge, sends him plummeting into the bottom of the ravine, followed by a blinding white light that’s so amazing and tearing a moan from deep inside of his chest, as he comes into his pants.

Louis follows shortly after, and Harry can’t even open his eyes to see what he looks like, because he’s lying at the bottom of that ravine, shaking slightly with the aftershocks of his orgasm, and it’s been a long time since he’s felt it so strongly, and it’s absolutely amazing.

Then there’s a sudden weight on his chest, and he just lies there like that for a while, hands on Louis’ hips still, eyes closed and listening to the sounds of heavy breathing.

When he opens his eyes, he looks down at Louis, who seems pretty content to just lie there boneless on his chest, but they should really strip out of their pants because otherwise, that will not be pleasant in the morning.

“Budge up Lou, we need to take our pants off” he says and he tries not to focus too much on the fact that he just called him Lou instead of Louis, that maybe Louis didn’t notice. He doesn’t say anything, so Harry assumes that he didn’t hear him.

Louis just half-heartedly murmurs out “mhmmm” and rolls off Harry and onto his back, but makes no effort to actually remove his clothing, so Harry strips himself of his own pants and briefs, wiping up the come that’s stuck to him, and moves to take off Louis’ as well.

Louis doesn’t seem to mind, just lifts his hips up slightly to help make it easier for Harry, and Harry does the same to Louis and chucks their clothes somewhere. He doesn’t even care where they land; he just wants to go to sleep.

So he pulls back the blankets, and slides them out from under Louis, who groans at the fact that his warm spot has moved, but sighs happily once Harry puts the blankets back over them and curls up into his chest.

With a final contented sigh, Harry lies on his back with Louis’ head pillowed on his shoulder and chest, and wraps his arms around Louis’ stomach.

And yeah, this is kind of dangerous, Harry will find it even harder to have Louis leave when he has to, but right now, he couldn’t care less.

He’s happy, there’s a warm body on top and next to him, and he just had one of the best orgasms of his life, and he’ll think about all of those problems another day.

But for now, he just needs to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Smut!! Hope you enjoyed it!!
> 
> My Tumblr is eatsleeplarryrepeat, I love feedback, it's always welcomed. Thank you!! <3


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